


There’s No Shortcut to a Dream

by tiniestdormouse



Category: Pandora Hearts
Genre: Abortion, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Discussion of Abortion, F/M, Sad Ending, Teen Angst, Teen Pregnancy, Teenage Drama
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-02
Updated: 2016-01-02
Packaged: 2018-05-11 06:30:12
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,568
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5616967
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tiniestdormouse/pseuds/tiniestdormouse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Summer nights in SoCal, all that mattered was Vincent, his car, and the stars. Until Ada realized that as fast as she could ride, it wouldn’t be fast enough. Modern AU.</p><p>Originally written for the PH Fanfest.</p><p> </p><p> </p>
            </blockquote>





	There’s No Shortcut to a Dream

 

Ada leaned into the passenger seat, letting her hair whip about her face and watched the passing streetlights overhead as the car cruised through the night like a smooth cat on the prowl, feeling the soft croons of the radio in her ears and letting the high make her float up toward the stars. Top down, see the flash-flash-flash of the lights, and the warm, salt-tinged winds kiss her cheeks and the warm touch of Vincent’s arm slung across her shoulders as he drove, one-handed, singing softly and yes, this is what she wanted.

They cruised over the bridge that arched between the mainland and Coronado Island (not really an island, but, like much of SoCal, it can give the impression of being more than what it seemed), and she looked out over the Pacific Ocean at the boats at the docks so tiny below and she felt Vincent’s hand curl around the side of her shoulder and she turned, slowly and smiled, kissing the arm that cradled her.

She loved him, and screw the rest of the world, and they were going to make it, to hell what Uncle Oscar and Oz and Gilbert think.

The darkened peaks and red-shingled roofs of Hotel del Coronado loomed ahead, and Vincent flipped the keys to the valet. The man didn’t know they hadn’t booked a room and owned nothing more than the few pieces of luggage in the trunk, but the convertible was classic and well-maintained (Vincent’s other baby, restored after-hours in his brother’s auto garage) and he smiled. Ada saw the stars in her lover’s face and giggled, leaning into his side and grabbing her bag from the floor of the car.

They strolled through the opulent lobby, styled in the original 19th century aesthetic of rich dark woods and wrought-iron lamps. The huge multi-tiered chandelier twinkled and blazed magnificently, and Ada thought of a diamond comet landing in front of them and the night at that moment made it all magical.

They crossed through the lobby toward the back where the white-railed patios led down to the beach. She shouldered her backpack over one sun-tanned shoulder. People who made it stayed at hotels like this one. She let the illusion sweep her away, imagining the type of woman she’d be to stay in a place like the Hotel del Coronado. Certainly not the skinny nobody she was now, a waitress with nothing to her name, not even a reputation worth gossiping about.

His lips touched her ear. “They say this place is haunted,” Vincent told her, knowing that these were the sort of facts that thrilled Ada: mysterious and occult. “Kate Morgan, a sad story. Tragic love. She walks the hallways and stuff. Feel that?” They stopped and a cold patch passed through them, and Ada gave a pleasant shiver because she couldn’t tell if it was ghosts or the feeling of Vincent’s hand, fluttering down the back of her sundress.

She believed, fervently, that there was more to this world than meets the eye. More than the shitty bungalow where her drunken uncle sat in a stupor mourning his wife and his lost potential of making it Hollywood big for the last ten years. More than the straight-edge path Oz took, spending days as a door-knocking Witness and saying how she lead a life of sin and the world was sinful and he was sinful and only Jesus can save them all (lies, lies lies, Ada thought, but Oz thought his very existence was damnation, ever since the day he confessed to her he wanted Gilbert, but he was ashamed that his body betrayed God’s will).

If anyone could save them, Ada thought, it wasn’t grieving for the past or repenting for the present, but living — now, right now— and her bare toes curled around the sand as she shuffled, sandals in hand, the beach landscape only lit by the full moon and the firebug ember light of the cigarette Vincent smoked.

The sound of the shore was a lullaby and the stars shown overhead in a cloudless night. Vincent lay down on the knitted blanket and pulled her down into his lap, finishing his smoke and tossing it into the dunes. Ada opened her mouth and let the smoke of his tongue enter her, filling every part she needed from him.

Her arms wrapped around his — lightly muscled from his mechanic work, but thin because these Nightray boys were always too skinny for their own good — and they fell backwards together, the sand cushioning them. He kissed her neck, her collarbone, down toward the swell of her breasts but stopped as she gave a squeal, reaching out and planting a peck on her nose and reached over to her bag to pull out the six-pack she carried.

Flick- flick and the calm hiss as the first two can were opened and they sat back in the dark, sipping the cold drink and leaned against each other.

“Where do you want to go?” he asked.

“Any where with seasons,” she said, after a thought. The condensation from her beer can chilled her hands and she rubbed the water over her wrists. “I want to see real seasons, not only the rainy and non-rainy ones. I want to see the leaves turn colors and snow — real snow, blizzard snow.” Another sip.

Life was soft and she was a soft girl and Ada knew this somehow. Not soft like the prep school girls of Claremont or the plastic girls of LA. Those girls were soft in how they always knew they’d be taken care of and only had to focus on the tinsel-fake worlds they sparkled in. Ada was acutely aware of a different softness she held; she didn’t know much in this world or possesses qualities she loved in others. She wasn’t elegant and witty like Sharon and wasn’t the smartest like Gilbert and didn’t know how to make people laugh and smile all the time like Vincent.

She yearned to be more than the beach gals and townies who planned to spend their lives working for tourists or running off to work the docks or on Navy ships. She wanted to make more of her life where she didn’t spend nights waitressing at Perry’s avoiding the boss who tried to feel her up while on the clock. She wanted to learn, though, she didn’t do well for the state tests because every other letter read backwards to her. The world was wide, it was different, and she wanted to race all across it, swept away in her boyfriend’s arms.

Vincent was here, he had a car, and that was all that mattered to her.

***

She didn’t realize she was carrying a baby until the second week of nausea and knew it couldn’t be a summer cold coming in. That day, she drove to the drug store and got a test and saw the blue two bars, solid as steel, and she felt a sudden knot tighten down below, right above her uterus.

The decision was simple. She knew all too well the girls in her high school giving up their lives for children they didn’t know how to provide for, and the deadbeat boyfriends who left them in tears. She knew that her parents kept Oz out of strict “family values” which slowly eroded away as soon as she was born—her father, a Navy man, lived a separate life in Okinawa, and her mother had vanished long before with a richer husband and other children that she obviously loved more.

“I need to go to the gynecologist,” she told Vincent (she was only sick, he didn’t need to know, she yearned for more and a child was not one of them). She took the trolley to the last stop and then the bus from the trolley to the nearest Planned Parenthood, alone. Determination built into a fist in her core, moving her actions with calm deliberation. She could be hard and brave and strong and didn’t need an escort despite the horror stories she heard.

The shouts from the crowd deafened her ears and the protestors numbered more than she guessed. “Murderer!” “Whore!” “Sinner!” came the cries and her limbs shook at the towering men and screeching women.

“They can’t touch me; they’d be arrested; they can’t do anything…” she pressed down her hat over her ears and hurried toward the building.

“Ada, what are you doing here?” A hand reached out, grabbed her, pulled her away.

“Oz?”

He was there, sleeves rolled up, a triangle of sweat marking the collar of his button-down shirt. Rage made his face turn vicious, his eyes looked as if they were blazing in anger. “Who did this? Who did this?” He pushed her, hard, and she fell on the pavement. He threw down the “Abortion is Murder!” sign he wielded and yelled, “I will NOT let my little sister be sinner!”

“Shut up! You don’t understand!” She got to her feet, wiped the dust from her jeans. “You think I’ll stay here? I’m leaving, Oz, and I can’t have anything stop me.”

The anger honed into a laser. Oz whispered, “Can’t you see this is your purpose? If God wants you to start a family, you should stay-“

“Cut the crap. I won’t be a washed-up tourist townie or a crazy Jesus-head like you. That’s all that I’ll be if I stay.”

If Oz was hurt by her words, he didn’t say. Instead, his eyes narrowed. “It’s Vincent Nightray’s right? Nightrays. Good for nothing bums.” He sneered and Ada’s hand twitched to slap him for the hypocrisy of his hatred, because he loved a Nightray too, no matter what he thought God said.

He turned heel and left, pushing through the crowd. “I’ll take care of that bastard who defiled you.” The edge to his voice turned to steel.

“Don’t you dare hurt him, don’t you fu-” she started, moving to take his arm, pushing past a protestor. The crowd surged, seizing opportunity since one of their own was being attacked. A woman grabbed the back of her shirt and threw her to the ground; she screamed. Protestors hovered over her, shouting. A wad of spit hit her cheek and someone was dragging her towards the parking lot, away from the clinic doors.

Suddenly, a man grabbed her in a bear hug; she elbowed behind her, trying to find a way to be free, before she realized he was shouting, “Stay clear. Give her space, give her space!”

She was bodily carried past the protestors into the clinic lobby. “Are you okay, Miss?” asked the man as soon she was lowered onto her feet.

“Y-yes, I think so. Thanks you so much. Thank you.” She threw her arms around him, trying to hold in the sob.

He hugged her and said, “When you’re done, I can take you to your car.”

“I took a bus,” she said. “But I can figure out something.”

“Do you need money for a taxi? You can’t just leave on a bus.”

“But I can’t.”

“We’ll pay.”

A small nod she could barely manage. “Thank you, Mister-?”

A crooked grin. “Call me Break.”

Break took her to the reception desk and gave her some water and later that day, he drove her home in his Ford pick-up after his volunteer shift ended because she refused to take any money for a ride.

The bungalow was dark; Uncle Oscar might be sleep, or at least too drunk to bother turning on the lights. Ada felt a tiredness too, deep in her bones and wished to lie down and sleep.

In the driveway, she waved as Break pulled away. Moments later, the headlights to a very familiar convertible flashed on.

“Hey there.” Vincent leaned against the hood; his voice lax but his posture rigid against the car. “Where were you?”

“The doctor’s. I told you I needed a check-up.”

“That wasn’t just any doctor.” The cigarette he held, a pure column of ash, hit the ground. “Oz told me.” The friendliness to his voice dropped. “Why didn’t I know?”

“It’s not your choice to make.”

“It is *our* baby.” He slammed a fist against the car door— the sound echoed.

She had never seen Vincent so worked up. “But our decision is to leave.”

“Our decision was to stick together, Ada. I’d be anything for you. Husband. Father,” he said. His voice lowered. “Or would’ve.” Shadows seemed to deepened and obscure Vincent’s expression “Don’t you love me?”

“I do.” Bewilderment overcame her. She was tired and sore and why wasn’t Vincent happy? He loved her and she loved him. The world was out there, waiting for their adventure.

“Then why didn’t you want my kid-?”

“What do you mean? It wasn’t even a kid to begin with—it was, was just a thing.”

“A thing, eh?” Vincent scoffed. “That’s what you think you got from me? A thing?” That darkness of shadows seemed to seep into his skin. Or maybe it was shadows lurking within finally coming out.

“I don’t understand.”

“No, you don’t. You don’t know what I want, Ada, and that’s the problem.” He got into the car and started the engine. “Well, here’s my decision. We’re done.”

“Wha-?”

She stepped before the headlights; he revved the engine.

“You can’t do this.” She ran forward; he edged closer; her hands hit the hood. Her bowels ached and a cold sweat had broken out across her skin. The bottom of her stomach seemed to drop out from beneath her, its contents emptying into an abyss.

“You can do anything you want. Why can’t I?” Vincent pressed the gas; Ada could feel the car’s wheels crunch over the gravel.

“Please, Vincent, please,” she moved; the car moved; a tread hovered over one foot. She scrambled around, grabbing for the passenger-side handle, and her hand brushed the side of the car as it lurched forward, screeching; the speed so fast the friction burned her fingertips. Her forward momentum made her tumble onto the asphalt, scrapping her forearms as she landed. Lifting her face, she got a mouthful of exhaust, choking and bitter, as Vincent left her behind.

She lay there, letting her vision blur the night. On the side of the drive were the few bags that were hers. She could try and call him. Text him. Leave messages. Beg. Cry. No, that look on his face, that deep sense of betrayal. She knew he wouldn’t answer. Not tonight. Perhaps never.

She thought all she needed was Vincent, his car, and the stars. No, she didn’t know what she wanted. She felt young and stupid and soft.

In the bungalow, the lights flicked on and a booming voice, like a dying walrus, came from inside. Her uncle, moaning as he roused himself from his stupor for his nightly bathroom shuffle. Most likely, Uncle Oscar never even realized how long she had been gone, and how she hadn’t planned to return.

“Who’s out there?”

Ada let her forehead touch her folded arms, suddenly too weak to move at all. Her stomach still throbbed in pain and so she rolled over and stared at the gaps in the sky past the drooping palm trees.

Minutes passed, and she heard Uncle Oscar clamber onto the porch.

“Oz? Ada?”

“Just me,” Ada said aloud. “I’m here.”

The stars didn’t answer.


End file.
